A pool of blood and fragmented brown glass blanketed ground shared by parents with their children, shattering a quiet Mother’s Day in an Old Strathcona park.

Witnesses detailed the apparent senseless beating of a 32-year-old man, who confronted a group in Gazebo Park. They said he was smashed in the face with a beer bottle and slashed.

“He asked them to stop swearing, because we have our kids here,” said a father standing protectively over his young daughters.

Within seconds, a half-dozen strangers rushed to the bleeding man’s aid, while the group fled west toward Whyte Avenue.

“I made a guy rip his shirt off and I put pressure on the wounds,” said 23-year-old Julie Crick, as she washed her blood-soaked hands. “I’m just not going to stand there and watch someone die, because he would have died.”

A bystander gave chase after the group of two men and two women, and called 9-1-1.

Officers later arrested two suspects, a 16-year-old male and a 20-year-old male. Both have been charged with aggravated assault, Edmonton police spokeswoman Karen Carlson told Metro yesterday.

Officers praised the quick-thinking bystanders, but police said they never recommend people put their lives on the line in violent circumstances.

Self-defence expert Calen Paine has trained a rising tide of Edmontonians, bent on protecting themselves on city streets.

“Thank God these people jumped in,” he said. “It’s also very human to not get involved, because fear for our own safety can be so strong.”

He said incidents of violent swarmings have become a real threat around Edmonton, forcing everyday people to make potentially deadly judgment calls.

“Anything can happen anywhere, anytime,” said bystander Laura Lee, who screamed for help when the attack began.